


The Blind Man's City

by rangopornstar



Series: The Blind Man's Ways [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Memories, Oneshot, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 14:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3853315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangopornstar/pseuds/rangopornstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Standing on the edge of a building makes Matt think of infection and demons and of the pounding pulse of a place he has never had the heart to leave nor forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Blind Man's City

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series! If you like what you see, be sure to check out the others. 
> 
> Anyway, literally wrote this in forty minutes and I too ratchet to have a beta so, that being said, if there is anything wrong with it, feel free to drop me a line, I would really appreciate it. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

It’s the beginning of a joke, really.

A blind man walks up to the ledge of a rooftop, looks out over his city and-

He can’t think of a good punchline and he’s not sure there is one. Either way, he feels powerful.

The city unrolls like a blinking carpet in front of him, above him, behind, below, to either side and he can feel its heart racing, racing, racing…

He wishes he could say he comes for the view, but that’s too much of a lie for even him to stomach.

He loves this city. He does. Loves it deep down into his bones, feels it scratching as it grates through his muscles like glass. It’s the good kind of hurt, the kind that feels like its making things better.

He guesses all hurts feel like that, at first.

Then, comes the scratching, the stinging, that old American Dreaming finally wakes up and you find your skin is puffy and red.

He can’t see it, but the city is inflamed. Swelling, like waterfed clouds, bleeding old blood that is raw and crusted, this city…

It is racing, but not the good kind. The infection has hit the blood, it’s going septic, and there is only so much time before the infection gets into the healthy tissue.

He knows, god, does he ever know how to spot a contagion.

He hears it on the television when Fisk steps from shade into light, he smells it in the gallery when Fisk walks in, feels it in the air the man displaces as he walks, and he tastes it on the air and it tastes like steel.

Fisk is an infection gone walking, and he haunts this city’s ~~Matt’s city’s~~ veins, crawling through the lifeblood as a masquerade.

Matt loves this city. It raised him, practically. It let him breathe its air, sure, he lost things in its streets ~~his father, his eyes, his religion, he’s not sure which one hurts him the most anymore~~ but he gained things too. Friends.

And his identity. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen makes him sound like a terrorist, but it speaks truths. Old, buried truths that he saves for confession, but they are truths nonetheless.

Because when Matt puts on the mask, when he hides his eyes ~~the ones he forgives this city for taking~~ when Matt Murdock slips into darkness…

That’s when he lets his devil out. When he loses what religion he has left and walks with his father’s composed and fearless demons.

Because his father had devils of his own, sure enough. He brought the demons with him into the ring and they backed him through every punch, through every win, every loss, his ghosts were there, watching, waiting, cheering.

Calling his father’s soul back to the dark where the Devil thought it belonged.

Matt supposes he took after his old man, in the end. Found his own darkness, raised his own fists to an enemy, and fostered his very own ghosts.

And the city gave him a name to match, gave him a name to remind him of the darkness that coiled around his heart, to remind him that the Devil waited for him in the shade where Fisk lived, waited with his father, waited, waited, waited…

Matt clambers down from the roof, steps onto the street.

And with the hand-me-down devils of his father and the monsters he made himself, he walks down racing streets, remembers the name this parent of a city gave him and thinks of something he heard once.

_Those Murdock boys, they got the Devil in them._

And he smiles.

Because it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> If you left a review, it would give me so much joy I would climb to the top of the Empire State Building with tears streaming down my face singing God Bless America as my heart exploded into a beautiful display of fireworks in the colors of the American flag. 
> 
> Which is saying something, because I'm Canadian.


End file.
